Memento Mori
The streetlight is flickering like a firefly in the hands of a curious child. The night air is dense and I can feel the moisture precipitating and running down my face like a jogger in an abandoned town. The smell of gasoline is entering my nostrils, attacking my weak sense of smell. There is a humming sound from the abused engine taking its last breath of contaminated air. My body temperature is decreasing and my hands are shivering like naked babies after their first bath. I move my right hand and reach over the cup-holders. It’s 11:20pm and I’ve never felt so alive.
As soon as spectators roll by in their luxuries automobiles, they will feast their eyes on the following scene:
- A car with its emergency lights flashing like the eyes of a teenager with Tourette syndrome.
- Grey smoke escaping from the elevated hood of the car like a Native American ritual.
- A 1987 Toyota Camry flipped upside down while having its hood smashed into a black streetlight covered with advertisements.
- Four bodies altogether, two in the front and two in the back. One of them is alive.
There were no drunk drivers involved in this car accident. There was no black cat that crossed the street at the last minute causing me to swerve my car into this pleasant streetlight. There wasn’t another car with their high beams on that blinded my vision. I did not fall asleep and begin counting sheep at the wheel. I was not applying make up, shaving my facial hair, reading a newspaper, or any of the ridiculous activities people partake in while driving. This accident was premeditated and fueled off new sensations.
As soon as police officers begin tearing apart my car, they will open the trunk and find the following contents:
- Nothing because everything I own was thrown in a river before the accident.
- Now that you think about it, they might find a grey sweatshirt with purple lettering reading “My son is a dancer at the Erich School of the Arts.”
- I have no children and the sweatshirt was a generous donation from the Goodwill.
After hanging upside down for several minutes, the blood starts to rush to your head. A sensation takes over your body and you feel like you are getting high for the first time. After brushing up against the concept of death, life breathes into your bloodstream in the form of a gasoline scented, smoke filled car accident.
I was never enrolled into any school clubs or after school activities. The closest thing I had to a group gathering was when my family went bowling and even then my father picked me last for his “magnificent and overpowering” team. If I were to jot down a list of friends, the list would look similar to a list of the weapons of mass destruction found in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I still think they should change “Freedom” to “Oil”, but that’s just my opinion.
I never received any phone calls asking me for advice on relationships or what to wear to school the next day. I never was asked to go to the movies, sit in the back row, and make out with a girl I’ve never met before. I never went to a party, but I heard a great deal about them. The drinking and the sexing and the laughing and the arresting. Everything was a social myth to me. Everything was a fossilized, extinct creature that I wanted to get my hands on, but could never find in the open field of adolescence.
Are you beginning to understand? Are you able to see the big picture now?
While hanging upside down and feeling the seatbelt dig into my intestines, I reach over and grab the stiff hand in the passenger seat. I grip the hand harder, as if I was trying to crack a frozen water balloon.
“Everything is going to be ok. I’m here and I will save you.”
I manage to twist my head to look at the backseat and I see two figures sitting next to each other. They are looking straight ahead with blank expressions on their faces. They sit together like children watching a public hanging for the first time, holding onto each other because the fear is too gripping.
“Hang in there for a few more minutes. Trust me and everything will be fine.”
At the office, everyone shoves me aside and looks down when they pass by me. I’m the mirror and they are the vampires too terrified to see their nonexistent self. I am the bucket of water and they are the fire that doesn’t want to be put out. I walk from floor to floor pushing a little metallic cart that squeaks every time I make a sharp turn. I hand out their mail and they can’t even conjure a “thank you”. They are the high-ranking officials and I’m the low level employee that doesn’t have a face.
Is everything becoming clear to you? Does it all make perfect sense?
The only people that know I exist are the tax collectors who bombard me with threatening letters. When the telemarketers start calling after noon, I pick up the phone and ask them how their day is going.
“Are you interested in receiving gifts and unlimited spending accounts with a MasterCard?” I tell them no, but I’m interested in their stories and what they are doing later that night.
“Are you interested in donating a few dollars to save the lives of endangered animals throughout the world?” I tell them I hate animals, but I rather meet up with them later for some coffee and a nice chat.
They hang up the phone after telling me I’m a worthless piece of God’s creation. Either telemarketers hate coffee or they have a social life that I don’t know about.
The minute the car flips and the airbags go off, you start to become a somebody that someone else will care about. The minute you inhale gasoline and realize the possible dangers of a fire, you are the last hope the other passengers have of getting out safely. You are the beacon of rebirth from the car accident. Without the beacon guiding them, they are as helpless as the inferior race in a national genocide.
Are you catching my drift? Do you understand the reason for this?
A car rolls by and the tires come to a complete stop. The driver’s door opens and a newly configured hero pops out of the vehicle like an anxious baby dying to get out of the womb. The hero starts yelling while running towards the scene of the accident.
“ Call 911! There are four people in the car and one of them is moving around!”
He’s yelling out to the passenger in his vehicle in a loud and desperate voice. For the next five minutes, he will believe himself to be a hero and I will be the most important person on this street. The next five minutes is the greatest moment of my life.
The hero starts banging on my window like an angry father catching his daughter with an older boy in her bedroom. His words are inaudible through the rolled up window. I move my left hand up and signal that the door is opened. The hero opens the door and his breathing is heavy. This is the moment that he has been waiting for, the moment he pictured in his head. Saving someone from an accident and being remembered for something. We are not so different after all.
“ Are you ok?”
Those words I’ve never heard before, except the time my brother was pushing me down the stairs and we both tumbled to the first floor. My mother walks up and asks, “Are you ok?” with tears in her eyes. I catch my breath and answer “Yes, but my back hurts.” My mother’s tears stop pouring out and her hyena laughter erupts. “I was talking to your brother.”
I nod my head, while pretending I just woke up from a coma. My eyes are rolling around in my head. Sweat is mixing with blood and running down my forehead.
“What happened?”
The hero steps back for a second, looks around, and crotches down again to my level.
“ Some jackass put a shopping cart in the middle street and you must have not seen it. The car flipped over when you hit the guardrail and you smashed into a streetlamp.”
I don’t appreciate being called a jackass by the man that is saving my life.
“Is everyone else al---ri---alright?”
He stumbles over his words when he glances around in the car at the other passengers.
“Why do you have three mannequins in your car?”
There is no good explanation, at least none he would understand. I couldn’t grab his shirt collar, pull him in closer, and whisper in his ear with my warm breath. I couldn’t tell him that these mannequins made me feel like someone’s life depended on me. I couldn’t tell him that I envisioned myself as being the beacon of hope in their near death encounter but didn’t have enough guts to fill my car up with actual living creatures.
“ Save me.”
The hero looks at me and blinks repetitively, as if trying to shake off an acid flashback that doesn’t make sense. He tries unbuckling my seatbelt but it’s jammed. He takes out a pocketknife and cuts away. He slides both arms under me and lifts me out of the car. I look down at my legs and one of my bones is peaking out the skin like a baby blue jay peaking out of its nest.
I’m a man with a face and a head full of cuts that need stitches. The accident was the stitches and I was the wounded skull.
He sets me down in the middle of the street and I wrap my arms around him. I close my eyes and I hear the sirens approaching from a distance. In the last five minutes, I’ve changed this man’s life and given myself something worth feeling.
He rocks me back and forth like a grandmother holding her grandson in her favorite rocking chair. He whispers in my ear, “Everything is going to be ok. Just hold on.”
As soon as spectators roll by in their luxuries automobiles, they will feast their eyes on the following scene:
- A car with its emergency lights flashing like the eyes of a teenager with Tourette syndrome.
- Grey smoke escaping from the elevated hood of the car like a Native American ritual.
- A 1987 Toyota Camry flipped upside down while having its hood smashed into a black streetlight covered with advertisements.
- Four bodies altogether, two in the front and two in the back. One of them is alive.
There were no drunk drivers involved in this car accident. There was no black cat that crossed the street at the last minute causing me to swerve my car into this pleasant streetlight. There wasn’t another car with their high beams on that blinded my vision. I did not fall asleep and begin counting sheep at the wheel. I was not applying make up, shaving my facial hair, reading a newspaper, or any of the ridiculous activities people partake in while driving. This accident was premeditated and fueled off new sensations.
As soon as police officers begin tearing apart my car, they will open the trunk and find the following contents:
- Nothing because everything I own was thrown in a river before the accident.
- Now that you think about it, they might find a grey sweatshirt with purple lettering reading “My son is a dancer at the Erich School of the Arts.”
- I have no children and the sweatshirt was a generous donation from the Goodwill.
After hanging upside down for several minutes, the blood starts to rush to your head. A sensation takes over your body and you feel like you are getting high for the first time. After brushing up against the concept of death, life breathes into your bloodstream in the form of a gasoline scented, smoke filled car accident.
I was never enrolled into any school clubs or after school activities. The closest thing I had to a group gathering was when my family went bowling and even then my father picked me last for his “magnificent and overpowering” team. If I were to jot down a list of friends, the list would look similar to a list of the weapons of mass destruction found in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I still think they should change “Freedom” to “Oil”, but that’s just my opinion.
I never received any phone calls asking me for advice on relationships or what to wear to school the next day. I never was asked to go to the movies, sit in the back row, and make out with a girl I’ve never met before. I never went to a party, but I heard a great deal about them. The drinking and the sexing and the laughing and the arresting. Everything was a social myth to me. Everything was a fossilized, extinct creature that I wanted to get my hands on, but could never find in the open field of adolescence.
Are you beginning to understand? Are you able to see the big picture now?
While hanging upside down and feeling the seatbelt dig into my intestines, I reach over and grab the stiff hand in the passenger seat. I grip the hand harder, as if I was trying to crack a frozen water balloon.
“Everything is going to be ok. I’m here and I will save you.”
I manage to twist my head to look at the backseat and I see two figures sitting next to each other. They are looking straight ahead with blank expressions on their faces. They sit together like children watching a public hanging for the first time, holding onto each other because the fear is too gripping.
“Hang in there for a few more minutes. Trust me and everything will be fine.”
At the office, everyone shoves me aside and looks down when they pass by me. I’m the mirror and they are the vampires too terrified to see their nonexistent self. I am the bucket of water and they are the fire that doesn’t want to be put out. I walk from floor to floor pushing a little metallic cart that squeaks every time I make a sharp turn. I hand out their mail and they can’t even conjure a “thank you”. They are the high-ranking officials and I’m the low level employee that doesn’t have a face.
Is everything becoming clear to you? Does it all make perfect sense?
The only people that know I exist are the tax collectors who bombard me with threatening letters. When the telemarketers start calling after noon, I pick up the phone and ask them how their day is going.
“Are you interested in receiving gifts and unlimited spending accounts with a MasterCard?” I tell them no, but I’m interested in their stories and what they are doing later that night.
“Are you interested in donating a few dollars to save the lives of endangered animals throughout the world?” I tell them I hate animals, but I rather meet up with them later for some coffee and a nice chat.
They hang up the phone after telling me I’m a worthless piece of God’s creation. Either telemarketers hate coffee or they have a social life that I don’t know about.
The minute the car flips and the airbags go off, you start to become a somebody that someone else will care about. The minute you inhale gasoline and realize the possible dangers of a fire, you are the last hope the other passengers have of getting out safely. You are the beacon of rebirth from the car accident. Without the beacon guiding them, they are as helpless as the inferior race in a national genocide.
Are you catching my drift? Do you understand the reason for this?
A car rolls by and the tires come to a complete stop. The driver’s door opens and a newly configured hero pops out of the vehicle like an anxious baby dying to get out of the womb. The hero starts yelling while running towards the scene of the accident.
“ Call 911! There are four people in the car and one of them is moving around!”
He’s yelling out to the passenger in his vehicle in a loud and desperate voice. For the next five minutes, he will believe himself to be a hero and I will be the most important person on this street. The next five minutes is the greatest moment of my life.
The hero starts banging on my window like an angry father catching his daughter with an older boy in her bedroom. His words are inaudible through the rolled up window. I move my left hand up and signal that the door is opened. The hero opens the door and his breathing is heavy. This is the moment that he has been waiting for, the moment he pictured in his head. Saving someone from an accident and being remembered for something. We are not so different after all.
“ Are you ok?”
Those words I’ve never heard before, except the time my brother was pushing me down the stairs and we both tumbled to the first floor. My mother walks up and asks, “Are you ok?” with tears in her eyes. I catch my breath and answer “Yes, but my back hurts.” My mother’s tears stop pouring out and her hyena laughter erupts. “I was talking to your brother.”
I nod my head, while pretending I just woke up from a coma. My eyes are rolling around in my head. Sweat is mixing with blood and running down my forehead.
“What happened?”
The hero steps back for a second, looks around, and crotches down again to my level.
“ Some jackass put a shopping cart in the middle street and you must have not seen it. The car flipped over when you hit the guardrail and you smashed into a streetlamp.”
I don’t appreciate being called a jackass by the man that is saving my life.
“Is everyone else al---ri---alright?”
He stumbles over his words when he glances around in the car at the other passengers.
“Why do you have three mannequins in your car?”
There is no good explanation, at least none he would understand. I couldn’t grab his shirt collar, pull him in closer, and whisper in his ear with my warm breath. I couldn’t tell him that these mannequins made me feel like someone’s life depended on me. I couldn’t tell him that I envisioned myself as being the beacon of hope in their near death encounter but didn’t have enough guts to fill my car up with actual living creatures.
“ Save me.”
The hero looks at me and blinks repetitively, as if trying to shake off an acid flashback that doesn’t make sense. He tries unbuckling my seatbelt but it’s jammed. He takes out a pocketknife and cuts away. He slides both arms under me and lifts me out of the car. I look down at my legs and one of my bones is peaking out the skin like a baby blue jay peaking out of its nest.
I’m a man with a face and a head full of cuts that need stitches. The accident was the stitches and I was the wounded skull.
He sets me down in the middle of the street and I wrap my arms around him. I close my eyes and I hear the sirens approaching from a distance. In the last five minutes, I’ve changed this man’s life and given myself something worth feeling.
He rocks me back and forth like a grandmother holding her grandson in her favorite rocking chair. He whispers in my ear, “Everything is going to be ok. Just hold on.”
posted by EmbraceTheVultures | 12:42 AM
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